Gordon W. Cowden, 51

Gordon W. Cowden's family released this statement:

"Loving father, outdoorsman and small business owner, Cowden was a true Texas gentleman that loved life and his family. A quick witted world traveler with a keen sense of humor, he will be remembered for his devotion to his children and for always trying his best to do the right thing, no matter the obstacle."

Jessica Ghawi, 24

Jessica Ghawi grew up a hockey fan in football-crazed Texas.

She followed that passion to Colorado to forge a career in sports journalism. It probably took her to Toronto, where just weeks ago, she walked out of a shopping-mall food court moments before a gunman shot seven people.

Matt McQuinn, 27

Matt McQuinn died protecting his girlfriend.

As a gunman calmly walked up the aisle of an Aurora movie theater Friday firing at moviegoers, the 27-year-old Ohio native dived on top of Samantha Yowler. Her brother Nick, 32, also tried to shield her, said Robert L. Scott, attorney for the McQuinn and Yowler families.

Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6

Veronica Moser-Sullivan will always be 6 years old.

The "vibrant, excitable," blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl, who was bragging five days ago about learning how to swim, was one of the 12 people killed in the Aurora theater shooting Friday, said her great-aunt Annie Dalton.

Alex Teves, 24

A friend, identified only as Caitlin on Twitter, posted messages on the social media network early Friday from the Century Aurora 16 theater, and wrote on Twitter early Saturday that Alex Teves was, "One of the best men I ever knew. The world isn't as good a place without him." She also described Teves as a fan of the University of Arizona and Spider-Man.

NIST employs 325 full-time federal workers, and a little more than 40 percent of its funding comes from the Department of Defense.

Wineland said he's allowed to work at NIST for short periods of time to maintain some equipment, but otherwise, his lab is shut down. He said it would be "very hard on us" to turn some equipment off at the institute, but no research is being conducted during the shutdown.

"We can't run any experiments," Wineland said. "The lab is completely shut down. I would guess 1 percent of the people (employed at the institute) are here now. We can't do any research."

Wineland said he's working on two main, long-term projects in the lab. One project is developing better atomic clocks, he said, and the other is developing elements of quantum computing. He won the 2012 Nobel Prize, along with Serge Haroche, for developing experiments to study quantum phenomena.

He's been working on both projects for decades, and Wineland said the government shutdown will start to affect his research if the furloughs continue much longer.

"A couple of weeks won't matter that much, but certainly after a couple weeks," he said. "We're losing ground to other groups, our colleagues elsewhere that realistically we're competing with. It's another reason for our frustration."

In the meantime, Wineland is trying to keep busy by working on other tasks that aren't related to his job at NIST, like planning a conference for next summer.

He said he's heard furloughed NIST employees may eventually be paid for the time they missed, but he didn't know for certain, he said.

Though he's frustrated with the shutdown, Wineland said in many science or research-based jobs, it doesn't matter if employees can't come to work. At least they can still dream, he said.

"The government can prevent us from working on our experiments, but I like to say they can't stop us from thinking," he said. "A large component of our work is to think about the experiments and dream up new ideas, and they can't stop us from doing that."